


Untitled (vs Goliath)

by akadiene



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 01:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14990015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akadiene/pseuds/akadiene
Summary: What's in a name?Plus, items of personal significance, a shopping mall in Orlando, a mystery or two, and water-resistant underwear.





	Untitled (vs Goliath)

Here is what you can bring to space, as per the list Daniel was given when first assigned the Hephaestus mission: a maximum of three pre-approved items of personal significance ie a photograph of a loved one. That’s it and no more, officially-speaking. Everything else Goddard provides, finite stacks of itchy and thick water-resistant underwear included, on account of the fact that water is heavy and precious and it’s more efficient to let your clothes be incinerated by the star in the great wide open than it is to wash them. Even now, no one’s quite sure how Eiffel got those cigarettes on-board, and he’s unable to answer any such questions anymore, so Daniel guesses he’ll just have to live with the mystery. One of many, but who’s got the energy to keep counting anymore, really.

He asked Kepler once why even allow the keepsakes at all -- surely it’s a waste of time to assign anyone at Goddard the task of approving such minutiae, and it’s not like the company cares about the emotional well-being of the crews it sends into deep space, no matter what Cutter says in his press conferences.

“On the contrary, Mr Jacobi,” said Kepler then. “It’s no fun pushing anyone to their breaking point if they’re already halfway there to begin with. And such minutiae, as you call it, prevents them from reaching it prematurely.”

“Only 34% of items are approved anyway,” said Maxwell. How she knew this he didn't ask. “They say it’s because everything has to be fireproof but mostly it’s arbitrary, as far as I can tell.”

“Or maybe it is fun,” Kepler said, and he smiled like a dog bearing its teeth. “Who am I to say?”

Didn’t make much of a difference for Daniel. He didn’t have anything to bring anyway, which is for the best, because there’s much more you have to leave on earth than you’re allowed to take and piling more onto that would have just added injury to injury. Maxwell, for example, left behind a caffeine addiction she’d been nursing for over a decade, the AI she’d rigged in her apartment which Daniel always suspected was a bit more than simply just that, and her current knitting project. Kepler left -- more than likely Kepler left on Cape Canaveral the last scrap of humanity he’d been holding onto, but he didn’t seem too perturbed by the loss. It didn’t make a significant difference in his daily life. And they’d all three left their names, which is also, coincidentally, the only thing on Daniel’s list at all. He hadn’t been particularly attached to his apartment, seeing as it was owned and paid for by Goddard, which made his landlord a dick. He didn’t have many worldly possessions because when you’re a spy -- or a Strategic Intelligence Operative, in public -- you learn that the less things you have the better it is when comes time to pack up and move on or run away or fly into space or start a new life with an alien, a blank-memoried man and an empty evil scientist redux, an AI with a chip on her shoulder, pun-intended, and the angriest ex-space-ship-Commander possibly ever, not because you particularly like them or want them but because you don’t know anything else least of all how to survive alone and it was a fucking joke to think Goddard, which Eiffel likes to call Goliath and Lovelace likes to call soul-sucking demons from the deepest pits of hell and which you once called home, would leave you alone to rebuild and recover once you crashed in the middle of a shopping mall in Orlando, only 55 miles off-course, which is pretty good, considering.

Anyway. Goddard doesn’t give you a new name if Cutter doesn’t plan for you to survive the trip -- easier to fake a single death instead of one for you and one for your alias, which is a strange sort of comforting when you think about it -- and it certainly doesn’t let you pick it yourself. In any case whoever’s in charge of that particularly process must have a sense of humour or at least is well-versed in Kepler’s definition of ‘fun’, because the only other Daniel and Jacob Daniel’s ever known deeply were -- well, they’re dead. In fact the only reason Daniel was the name he gave Kepler that first afternoon over those first glasses of Balvenie during that first conversation was because it was the only name he’d been able to come up with on the spot, seeing as he’d been there mourning it, or the owner of it, or something. How was he to know Kepler already knew his real name and everything he was. It was unequal from the start, Daniel knows that now. Possibly it still is, even with -- especially with -- well.

And Kepler is just too thematically appropriate to be a coincidence.

The truth is, the hard fucking truth of it is, he doesn’t think he ever knew Maxwell and Kepler’s real names, even though even Maxwell almost certainly knew his, because she was an actual certifiable genius and he could never hide anything from her even when he wanted to. In fact he barely remembers it himself, nor who the man who once owned it was. Another mystery. Add it to the pile, Mr Jacobi, just find a spot, and don’t worry about the whole thing toppling over, you’ve got enough on your mind.

So he supposes he’ll keep Daniel. It’s a good name. Solid. Better than some other temporary ones he’s had to wear for Goddard over the years, that’s for fucking sure. And he likes being Daniel, as much as he likes anything these days -- or maybe it’s just comfortable. Doesn’t matter, really. There are people who know Daniel, and there were people who knew every intimate detail of Daniel, inside and out and inside again, and even though some or most are gone now at least Daniel isn’t. Daniel’s alright. Daniel’s been through a lot, and Daniel’s come out the other side. Daniel’s seen things no other human alive has seen and remembered. Daniel is fighting, still. Daniel is holding on.

Here is what you can take with you when you come back from space: not fucking much. But he isn’t going to let them take his name from him. Not this time, and not ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> [@bluegrasshole](http://www.bluegrasshole.tumblr.com)


End file.
